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Granted, it may be urged, that these observations upon the
nature of Substance are sound, we have not yet arrived at a
statement of its essence. Our critic doubtless expects to see
this "Sensible": but its essence, its characteristic being,
cannot be seen.
Do we infer that fire and water are not Substance? They certainly
are not Substance because they are visible. Why, then? Because
they possess Matter? No. Or Form? No. Nor because they involve a
Couplement of Matter and Form. Then why are they Substance? By
existing. But does not Quantity exist, and Quality? This anomaly
is to be explained by an equivocation in the term "existence."
What, then, is the meaning of "existence" as applied to fire,
earth and the other elements? What is the difference between this
existence and existence in the other categories? It is the
difference between being simply- that which merely is- and being
white. But surely the being qualified by "white" is the same as
that having no qualification? It is not the same: the latter is
Being in the primary sense, the former is Being only by
participation and in a secondary degree. Whiteness added to Being
produces a being white; Being added to whiteness produces a white
being: thus, whiteness becomes an accident of Being, and Being an
accident of whiteness.
The case is not equivalent to predicating white of Socrates and
Socrates of white: for Socrates remains the same, though white
would appear to have a different meaning in the two propositions,
since in predicating Socrates of white we include Socrates in the
[whole] sphere of whiteness, whereas in the proposition "Socrates
is white" whiteness is plainly an attribute of Socrates.
"Being is white" implies, similarly, that Being possesses
whiteness as an attribute, while in the proposition "whiteness is
Being [or, is a being]" Being is regarded as comprising whiteness
in its own extension.
In sum, whiteness has existence because it is bound up with Being
and present in it: Being is, thus, the source of its existence.
Being is Being on its own account, but the white is due to
whiteness- not because it is "present in" whiteness, but because
whiteness is present in it.
The Being of the Sensible resembles the white in not originating
in itself. It must therefore be regarded as dependent for its
being upon the Authentic Being, as white is dependent upon the
Authentic Whiteness, and the Authentic Whiteness dependent for
its whiteness upon participation in that Supreme Being whose
existence is underived.
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